[2018-03-27] I got a letter from immigration [mwZYU1HYRo8]

Hey, so it's been 2 weeks since I applied

for the spouse visa. After we got married,

we went straight to immigration and we

applied for the spouse visa. We were a

little bit worried about going to

immigration because we read some scary

things online about people getting

rejected, or about people getting

interrogated or interviewed about their

relationship separately. But luckily,

when we went to immigration, no one

questioned us about our relationship. We

didn't have to go into a room. We didn't

have to answer any questions about the

relationship. We just filled out some

papers, handed in some documents that we

prepared earlier, and they stamped my

passport with a new stamp. They gave me

this application stamp in my passport,

which means I can stay in Japan for up to

2 months until, until we get the results

for my visa application. In the case

where an application pursuant to change of

his/her status of residence

or renewal of his/her period of stay is

made, if the disposition for this

application has not been made until

expiration date of the period of blah

blah blah blah blah blah. So this is

basically just a really poorly written,

overly complicated paragraph which

explains that you can stay in Japan for up

to 2 months whilst your visa application

is being processed, and if you get

rejected, then you have to go back to

immigration and They'll give you a new

stamp, I guess, and then you have to get

out of Japan. And then a few days ago when

we were checking the postbox, we found

this brown envelope which has some

interesting pieces of paper inside of it.

So they gave us this piece of paper which

has a checklist of extra documents that we

need to send to them, and the first one is

a British marriage certificate.

And I don't have a British marriage

certificate because I didn't get— we

didn't get married in England. So I

emailed the British Embassy in Tokyo and I

said, could you send me a British marriage

certificate? And they said, sorry, we

can't send you a British marriage

certificate because your, your marriage

was registered in Japan. So my wife phoned

up immigration and explained that to them,

and then they said, oh, that's okay, we

don't actually need it. Well, if you don't

need it, then why did you ask for it in

the first place? Maybe you should have

known that the British Embassy doesn't

give people British marriage certificates

unless the marriage is registered in

Britain. I was a bit relieved because I

was worried that I would have to go back

to Tokyo, back to the British Embassy in

Tokyo to pick up my British marriage

certificate, but apparently we don't need

it. And the rest of the items on this

checklist are just tax documents. They

want proof that my wife is actually paying

tax. I don't know how that's relevant to

my spouse visa. That's, that's her

business, isn't it? I'm applying for the

spouse visa, not her. I don't quite

understand why they're making such a big

deal about making sure that she's paying

tax. So she has to get her tax forms from

her work and she needs to get them printed

out and then we'll put them into this

brown envelope and send them back to

immigration. It's kind of stupid because

if she has a job, then obviously she's

paying tax. She doesn't have to pay tax

herself. Her tax gets automatically

deducted from her wage. That's how it

works. And, um, they also want proof that

she actually works at the place where she

said she works at. So she needs to get

some kind of form that proves that she's

an employee at the company that she works

at. They do seem to make a big fuss about

my wife's job and her tax situation.

It kind of makes me think, what if my wife

didn't have a job? What if she wasn't

paying tax? Do you think they would give

me a spouse visa then? I don't quite

understand why my wife's job is important.

It's not like she's going to be supporting

me. I don't rely on my wife for money.

She doesn't pay for things for me. I pay

for everything myself. I have my own

money. I have my own savings. And when I

get my spouse visa, I'll be able to get a

job and work. So it's not like I'm going

to be relying on her. It's not like she's

going to be supporting me. So I don't

understand why immigration are making such

a huge fuss about my wife's job and my

wife's tax forms. We have until the 30th

of March to prepare everything and get it

all sent off back to immigration. And it's

kind of last minute. Today's the 27th, so

we only have a few days left until the

deadline. It's just that my wife hasn't

been able to get her tax forms until today

because it takes, takes time for a company

to prepare an employee's tax forms. We

can't just snap our fingers and have all

the forms and documents ready the next

day. And it's kind of frustrating because

immigration should know this. They should

know that it takes time to get these

documents ready. And they should have

given us more time, not just a week or 2.

They should give us more than 2 weeks to

get everything prepared. So hopefully my

wife will come home today with her tax

forms and we can get everything sorted

out, get everything prepared in the

envelope, and have it sent this evening.

And hopefully it should arrive at

immigration tomorrow or the day after

tomorrow. If my wife comes home today and

says she wasn't able to get the tax forms,

then we are going to be kind of screwed.

We won't have enough time to be able to

get the tax forms and have it arrive at

immigration before the 30th. So hopefully,

um, she'll be able to phone immigration

and they'll give us more time. I'm not

sure how strict they are about the

deadline. It seems a bit harsh to say,

oh, if you can't get the tax forms to us

by the 30th of March, then we have to

reject your application and you have to

say goodbye to your husband and he has to

go back home to England. I'm still not

sure if I have a good chance of getting

the spouse visa. Maybe this is a good

sign. Maybe they've checked the documents

that we've already handed in and

everything was okay, and they just need

some extra documents. Because if they've

already checked our documents that we've

handed in and they decided it looks like a

sham marriage or a fake marriage, then

they wouldn't be asking us for extra

documents. They would have just sent a

letter saying that the application was

rejected. Or maybe they haven't even

checked any of the documents that we've

given them, and they're waiting for the

extra documents, the additional documents,

to come first before they start reviewing

any of it. We also had to send them

screenshots, photos of screenshots from

conversations we've had online, so

hopefully that's proof enough that we're

actually living together, that we're

actually a couple in a relationship. And

hopefully in a few weeks' time they'll

send us a new letter saying

congratulations, you can come to

immigration and pick up your spouse visa.

Welcome to Japan!

Hello and welcome back

to Cooking with Daniel. Today we're going

to be making something a bit special, a

bit more special than usual, and we're

going to be making one of my special,

special dishes, my specialties, and that

is a homemade pizza. So here's a quick

run-through of the ingredients that I have

prepared. We have Milano crust— very

important, you can't make a pizza without

a crust. Um, we also have some cheese,

and this is interesting cheese because

it's not just one type of cheese. You have

light yellow cheese and dark yellow

cheese, which makes— gives you some

variety in the flavor of the cheese. We

also have some bacon Or fake bacon.

It's Japanese bacon. It's not bad bacon,

but it's not really the same as British

bacon. We also have 1 mushroom that

we're going to slice thinly. We also have

some spring onions that we're going to

sprinkle onto the top of the pizza. And

we're missing one very important

ingredient. Oh yeah, the tomato puree.

This is the tomato puree that we're going

to be using today. A lot of people get

confused and they think this is ketchup.

It's not ketchup, it's tomato puree. Not

ketchup. So here's a step-by-step plan of

what we're going to be doing to create

this pizza. First, we put on the tomato

puree, then we sprinkle on the cheese,

and then we slice the bacon and put the

bacon on top. We also slice the mushroom

and put that on top, and then at the end,

we sprinkle the spring onions onto the

top, and then we'll put it into the grill,

which I have over here.